Written by

Michael Cass

The Tennessean

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall / File

Juvenile Court Clerk David Smith / File

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Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall, two other elected officials and at least three other Nashville residents were given the wrong ballots during the Aug. 2 state primaries because the county’s technology defaulted to the Republican election, a voter advocacy group said Monday.

Tennessee Citizen Action presented statements from Hall, Juvenile Court Clerk David Smith and others who said they didn’t receive the correct ballots because of problems with the electronic poll books used this month at 60 of the county’s 160 precincts.

“This is completely outrageous,” Mary Mancini, the group’s executive director, said during a news conference outside the Davidson County Election Commission’s offices. “For any official ballot or any machine to default to any party is completely inexcusable. In this case it’s defaulting to the majority party that’s in power. But it would be just as inexcusable if it happened with one of the other parties.”

Election Administrator Albert Tieche, who faced questions about the matter from the state’s elections chief earlier this month, was unavailable to comment when reporters went inside the commission offices. His office later emailed a letter Tieche had sent to State Elections Coordinator Mark Goins last week.

“The limited deployment was successful and on August 13, the Davidson County Election Commission voted unanimously to proceed with full deployment countywide in November,” Tieche wrote.

In a letter to Tieche on Aug. 9, Hall, a Democrat, wrote to ask that his votes be counted in the county general election only. He said two poll workers failed to ask him which primary he wanted to vote in, and he noticed the names of the Republican candidates for U.S. House and Senate seats only after he had started voting. He said he didn’t vote in the congressional races.

“I consider myself a very educated voter, and this is a real problem,” wrote Hall, who has been elected countywide three times and is a potential candidate for mayor in 2015.

Smith said in a statement provided by Tennessee Citizen Action that he initially received a Republican ballot when he went to vote at Union Hill Baptist Church in Goodlettsville. He said he called the issue to a poll worker’s attention and ultimately was able to vote in the Democratic primary.

State Sen. Joe Haynes, another Democrat, has said he also initially received the wrong ballot.

Smith also said his wife, Julianne Smith, was told by a poll worker that she was no longer registered to vote at the church, despite having voted there in March. When she provided her driver’s license, the election commission’s computer produced a voting record for “a Judith Smith in Antioch.”

Mancini said the commission’s computers made similar errors in a number of cases around the county. She called on the election commission to immediately stop using the electronic poll books and demanded independent audits of the Aug. 2 election and the commission in general.

Mancini also said state election officials should notify local and federal prosecutors and the state attorney general’s office.

Goins opposed use of poll books

Goins, the state elections coordinator, sent Tieche a letter on Aug. 17, state records show, to ask him 10 questions about issues with incorrect ballots and the training of poll workers.

“I told you that I did not recommend using the Electronic Poll Books this election year,” Goins wrote, referring to an earlier conversation with Tieche. “However, you assured me you would adequately train poll officials regarding usage and that you had thoroughly researched Electronic Poll Books.”

In his response to Goins last week, Tieche wrote that he knew of one voter — presumably Hall, though he did not say so — who had contacted his office about receiving the wrong ballot and that one poll official had mentioned that a voter was given the wrong ballot.

Tieche was formally reprimanded by state officials in May for failing to open the polls on a Saturday during the early voting period for the March 6 presidential primary.